Men's Basketball Takes Down Northeastern, 60-46

With 7:44 to play and his team clinging to a nine-point lead, senior wing Wesley Saunders showed a bit of the reason why he came into Wednesday’s game seventh in the nation in scoring.

After Northeastern’s Reggie Spencer missed a short corner jumper on one end, junior co-captain Siyani Chambers brought the ball up for Harvard, sending it quickly to Saunders, who was waiting, hands up, in the right corner. Saunders put the ball on the floor just once before reaching the paint, at which point he elevated from the right box, floated across the lane, and flicked in the layup before landing on the other side of the key.

The bucket put Saunders’s team up, 49-38, and the Huskies never threatened again. After failing to separate itself for much of the second half, the Crimson outplayed and outlasted Northeastern down the stretch, ultimately pulling out the victory, 60-46, Wednesday night at Lavietes Pavilion.

While the home team eventually broke the game open, Harvard’s play in the minutes immediately proceeding and following intermission wasn’t nearly as smooth as Saunders’s acrobatic layup. After the Crimson (5-1) took a 10-0 lead to start the game, Northeastern (5-2) took advantage of a six-minute Harvard field goal drought to inch back into the contest. Led by senior forward Scott Eatherton, the Huskies made a barrage of layups to close the first period, capitalizing on Harvard’s lack of rhythm on the offensive end to tighten up the game.

The Crimson’s 13-point lead quickly evaporated as the Huskies relied on a surfeit of interior passes and points in the paint to get within five points heading to the locker room at the half.

And when Northeastern guard T. J. Williams knocked down a trey on the first play of the second period, a contest that had seemed to be turning into a blowout just a half hour prior was suddenly a one-possession game.

But then Harvard turned to Saunders, and the senior did what he has been doing all season long: score. Thirty seconds after Williams’s shot from deep, Saunders broke out in transition, and Chambers found him. Saunders drew the foul, and hit both shots from the charity stripe. On the next possession, Saunders slashed to the paint once more and put in the layup.

Back-to-back buckets by senior center Kenyatta Smith and co-captain Steve Moundou-Missi extended Harvard’s lead back to seven before Saunders grabbed a rebound and scored the put-back, giving the Crimson a nine-point advantage and marking his third basket in as many minutes.

"[We] had a sense of urgency to begin the second half,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “We talked about [being aggressive] the first four minutes of the second half, and I thought we [did] that which gave us some confidence…which was crucial for us.”

Just as they had done in the first half, however, the Huskies began to chip into the home team’s lead—one post play at a time. Three layups by Northeastern big men Spencer and Eatherton, and a short floater by the former, brought the team within six, 44-38, with 9:24 to play.

But a deep corner jumper from Moundou-Missi and a made free throw from junior wing Agunwa Okolie extended Harvard’s advantage back to nine, setting up Saunders’s floating, up-and-under layup with 7:44 remaining.

From there, the team that was supposed to win did everything it needed to in order to pull out the victory. When the final whistle blew, it was Harvard that came out on top.

“[In the second period], we got up in transition—Siyani was pushing it, and we got ahead before they could set up the defense,” Saunders explained. “So I think we did a better job attacking their defense in that second half.”

While Saunders did not score in the first period, he ended the night with a team-high 12 points, while his five takeaways matched the entire number of steals that the Huskies put up on the night.

"He is a veteran player and a tremendous player,” Amaker said. “We expect him to play [the] way [he did]…. I thought Wesley was good in his attention to detail and his awareness to defend [Northeastern’s Dvavid Walker], who is a tremendous player and a tremendous shooter."

With Harvard’s go-to scorer largely silent in the game’s opening minutes, the team relied on Saunders’s backcourt-mate, Okolie, to put points on the board. And four minutes into the game, the Crimson was up, 10-0, largely thanks to the offensive facilitation of Okolie.

The scoring was tipped off by Chambers, who received a pass near the left elbow, took two dribbles, hesitated, stepped back, and sunk a 17-foot jumper.

On the next Crimson possession, Chambers found Okolie, who was cutting to the basket. 4-0. Okolie then found senior big man Kenyatta Smith down low for a layup, and then followed that up with a jump shot of his own from the right elbow. Smith’s short hook shot from the right block moments later pushed the lead to 10-0.

While Harvard’s offensive onslaught may have been halted later in the first half, Okolie’s production continued past intermission. His highlight of the night came with 15:50 to play, when he received the ball near the left elbow. With Northeastern’s freshman Devon Begley on his back, Okolie spun quickly to his right, gliding down the left side of the paint before laying the ball into the hoop. The wing finished the evening with a season-high nine points, shooting four-of-four from the field for the game.

"He’s been banged up a little bit and I wasn't sure how much he'd be able to go, as he missed some practice this week,” Amaker said. “[But] he really gave us some offensive production, attacking the basket, using his athleticism—his production tonight, I thought, was outstanding and very much needed."

The Huskies were able to stick around largely due to their activity on the offensive glass. The visiting squad totaled 15 offensive rebounds, resulting in 19 second-chance points. Eatherton led the squad in its efforts, scoring a game-high 16 points to go along with a team-high six boards.

“I’m disappointed in our ability to [] rebound but that's a function of our defense—that people are going to try and get early shots against us and try to get it off the backboard because our defense has been able to lock in and be pretty solid,” Amaker explained. "I think we are growing and still a work in progress…. We always talk about the two ‘B’ words, our bench and our balance, and the closer we get to those two words, the more we will hit our stride."

Amaker was unable to give any timetable for the return of senior forward Jonah Travis, who has missed the last few games with an injury. Travis, he said, has been restricted from working out with the team due to lingering symptoms.

—Staff writer Juliet Spies-Gans can be reached at juliet.spies-gans@thecrimson.com.